Latvian journalist assaulted in Riga

March 30, 2012 2:55 PM ET

New
York, March 30, 2012--Authorities must conduct a thorough and effective
investigation into the attack on the publisher of a Latvian news website that
had run a number of sensitive stories, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today.

At
least two unidentified assailants attacked Leonids Jakobsons, owner of the
independent news website Kompromat,
in the stairwell of his apartment building in Riga, the capital, as he returned
home with his 9-year-old son on Thursday, local
and international
press reported. Jakobsons, who was attacked with a knife, was hospitalized with
multiple bruises on his head and a three-inch-long cut on his cheek, but is now
stable, the independent regional news website Delfi reported.

Jakobsons
told
local journalists he believes the attack was connected to his work, but
could not say which of his articles may have provoked it, news reports said. Delfi reported that Riga police had opened an investigation into
the attack and were considering journalism as a motive.

According
to the independent news website Lenta, Kompromat has
published sensitive information in the past, including reports on alleged
connections between Latvian nationalists and the Chechen diaspora, and a probe
into the attempted murder of a former customs official. Last year, the site published
leaked email exchanges between a Riga mayor and a Russian embassy official. After
the site alleged the official was a Russian intelligence agent, the mayor filed
a complaint and police detained Jakobsons in December and confiscated his
computers, according to news reports.

Latvian
Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis condemned the attack and called on police to
thoroughly investigate the incident, Delfireported.

"It
is intolerable that a journalist working in a European Union country should be
savagely attacked in this fashion," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney.
"We welcome the prime minister's commitment to investigate this assault, but
police must act quickly to apprehend the attackers."